


Cursed Life

by Canache



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 17:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1867044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canache/pseuds/Canache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are rules to magic, whether you understand how they work or not. It shouldn't have been surprising that someone took those rules to the logical extreme...</p>
<p>Chrestomanci has had a busy time lately. Joe and Roger's infernal flying machine seems almost magically attracted to the roofs of tall buildings, there have been problems all over Series 9, and now it looks like someone has been misusing magic in World 12E. Which is odd, because there shouldn't be any magic in World 12E at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed Life

'...and then Klartch decided he wanted to race it,' tailed off Roger pathetically. 

'But we won!' piped up Joe, which probably didn't help matters.

Chrestomanci appeared to be having some difficulty deciding which of the two boys to glare at. 'Do either of you know how difficult it is to extract a panicking griffin from the hole it has just made in the roof?'

It was taking Cat some effort not to enjoy the sight of his friends squirming. For once he wasn't in trouble along with them, and was in fact very glad that his Magical Theory lesson had been interrupted by the flying machine and Klartch hitting the roof. He gratefully leaned back against the wall and wondered if he looked as nervous as Joe did right now when he was summoned before Chestomanci in disgrace.

'Is...is Klartch going to be Ok?' asked Roger. Cat generously decided that this inquiry was almost entirely out of genuine concern and not just because Roger thought a display of sympathy might alleviate his father's wrath.

'He won't be flying anywhere for a week or so,' said Chrestomanci, finally settling on Roger as the recipient of the glare.

The boys shifted uncomfortably on the carpet. This was surely going to result in an even harsher punishment than the one they had received for breaking all the windows in Michael's workshop, Cat thought. And _that_ had involved a whole week of mucking out the stables. Without magic.

There was a knock on the door, and Millie walked into Chrestomanci's office without waiting for an invitation. 'Oh dear, are you not done terrifying the children yet?'

'Not quite', answered Chrestomanci darkly. Roger winced, and Cat hoped for his sake that Joe wasn't about to ask Millie if she had been able to salvage their flying machine.

'Well, hurry up and put them out of their misery,' said Millie, taking a piece of paper out of her pocket and handing it to her husband. 'This might be important.'

Chrestomanci gave it a glance, and Roger and Cat both watched with a spark of hope as one of his eyebrows raised just a little. Maybe he would forget about the punishment and the rest of the lesson if he was distracted by something important...

'As you are responsible for his current state, the two of you will be solely responsible for organising Klartch's food until his wings are better,' said Chrestomanci with a hint of an evil grin. 'That means preparing it in the kitchen, taking it to his room, washing up afterwards...everything.'

Fortunately even Joe had enough sense not to complain at the sheer volume of food that Klartch consumed on a daily basis. Cat watched as the two boys nodded and miserably trooped out of the room. 

'Klartch won't enjoy being babied,' remarked Millie.

'Serves him right. He's at least partly responsible for the roof.' Chrestomanci looked at the paper again. 'Indications of magic use in World 12E. Well Cat, as you have failed so dismally today at Performative Speech you may dazzle me with your knowledge of 12E.'

'Er,' Cat hurriedly sat up straight in his chair and tried to dredge up something from Michael's lessons. 'Er, 12E and 12B are the only worlds in Series 12 without magic, although they're not all that similar. Er. There's not much of a smuggling problem from 12E. Er...'

It really was quite amazing how many different ways Chrestomanci had to look unimpressed. 

'And your theory of why there would be traces of magic there?'

'Er. Petty criminals from our world sometimes go there when they're trying to hide from the Police.'

'Good. Well, we'd better go and get them back before the natives are rudely introduced to the idea of magic. Millie, would you ask that new kid, Simon, to join us downstairs.'

'I really don't think you should refer to a Ministry sorcerer as the new kid, dear,' said Millie on her way to the door, 'and his name is Steven.'

'Hmmm. Come along, Cat. Maybe if I put you in a really dangerous situation you'll learn to do magic properly out of sheer terror.'

Trailing miserably behind the hem of an offensively bright purple dressing gown, Cat followed Chrestomanci down to the entrance hall, where a smartly dressed young man was already waiting.

'Ah, Stuart-' began Chrestomanci.

'Steven,' muttered Cat.

'-Steven, up for a jaunt to 12E? The Ministry representative from 12D says there have been some traces of magic, but as far as we know there shouldn't be anyone with magic in 12E at the moment. Now, you'll both need to cast a spell on your clothes so you don't look too out of place and...'

As he carried on with his lecture he swept them all out of the door and towards the hidden Garden with its gateway to other worlds. Cat waved his left hand vaguely over his sweater, idly wondering if any spell was strong enough to make the purple dressing gown look normal to the inhabitants of 12E.

*****

The three of them were walking down a street filled with the oddly shaped and shiny buildings of World 12E's equivalent of Bristol. Poor Steven, having politely ignored being called Scott by Chrestomanci, had told Cat what he should have already known about 12E. Right now they were walking around one of the most important universities in this world, while trying to hunt down the supposed traces of magic. Cat was practising his ability to tell what world people came from, looking from the people walking past to Steven and Chrestomanci, and trying to convince himself that of course he could see the difference between them. The door of a building on the other side the street opened and belched a stream of oddly dressed twenty-somethings out into the sunlight.

'Well?' asked Chrestomanci suddenly. Both Cat and Steven hesitated for a second, uncertain who the question was aimed at.

'I can feel wizardry, some about a week old and some more recent,' Steven said at last. 'It feels like it all comes from one person. And nearby.'

'Good, Sean. I agree.' 

Another door opened and deposited its crowd of youngish people onto the street. The students were walking towards them and Cat backed into a wall to give them space to go past. Steven was examining each building in turn, apparently trying to work out where the feeling of magic had come from. Chrestomanci, on the other hand, was now staring vaguely at the group of students that had just gone passed. 

'What is it?' Cat asked, curiously watching the students himself.

'I'm not sure...' Chrestomanci began to follow the students, and Steven and Cat fell in behind him. As the group wound its way around the university buildings it dwindled, with twos and threes going their separate ways. As the group shrunk the three of them stayed further and further back so it was not so obvious that they were following the last little knot of half a dozen people.

'Sir?' half-whispered Steven. 'None of them feels like the wizard we're looking for.'

'No, but I think one is an Enchanter.'

Steven and Cat shared a glance. 

'I don't feel any enchanter's magic, sir,' said Steven politely.

'Nor do I,' chimed Cat, as the group of students split in two by the doors of what looked like a library. Two girls walked off down a side street, and it was these two that Chrestomanci was following at a discreet distance.

'I can see her lives,' said Chrestomanci quietly. It took Cat a moment to work out what this meant. A nine-lifed Enchanter, in 12E. He wasn't aware of any other nine-lifers anywhere apart from himself and Chrestomanci, and old Gabriel de Witt. 

'Which one?' asked Steven, but Cat had already spotted the peculiar sensation around the student in the blue top and the odd trousers. This must be how Chrestomanci saw people with multiple lives. 

'The one in the blue top,' Cat said, half in reply to Steven and half as a question to Chrestomanci, who nodded.

'I'm glad to see you are picking up some things, Cat.'

The two girls appeared to be waving goodbye to one another, and the one in the blue top set off across a small park. From behind all Cat could really see was an untidy ponytail of brown hair and a bag slung across her shoulder, which appeared to be gently leaking paper. 

'It's already a misuse of magic to come to 12E,' Chrestomanci was saying, as the three of them dodged around other people in the park and kept the girl in sight, 'and I can't imagine why an Enchanter would want to be here. And I have no idea how she's stayed undetected. It shouldn't be possible for a nine-lifed Enchanter to cross a World boundary without leaving a trace.'

'Unless they're doing it sneakily in spirit form for their criminal uncle...sorry, not the time.' Cat tried to look apologetic as Steven tried not to laugh. 

Whatever cutting remark Chrestomanci would have made in reply was cut off as all three of them suddenly felt the same wizard they had been tracking earlier. It felt like the beginning of a binding spell, and Cat found himself instinctively preparing to work against it. 

By this point there were at the edge of the park, and the girl was preparing to cross the road. There was a-

The world lurched. 

'Steven, keep Cat safe,' Chrestomanci was saying. Cat would have protested that he didn't need protecting, but at the moment his brain was having difficulty deciding which way was up. There was a loud screeching noise, and Cat got his vision focussed just in time to almost be certain that a car had been about to hit the girl in the blue top but she had managed to teleport out of its way at the last second.

Steven hauled Cat to his feet as the girl stood on the opposite pavement for a second. And then she threw up. A small part of Cat's stomach wanted to join in and as he fought that feeling Chrestomanci hurried over the road in time to catch the girl as she fainted. 

There was a deeply unpleasant sensation and Cat found himself on the floor again, although this time the floor seemed to be the patterned tiles of the entrance hall at Chrestomanci Castle. Somewhat to his chagrin, Chrestomanci and even Steven were still on their feet. Chrestomanci carefully laid the unconscious girl on the floor and spared Cat a glance.

Millie burst down the stairs. 'Are you all alright?'

Cat scrambled to his feet as Janet's concerned face appeared over the bannister. 

'We're fine, dear,' answered Chrestomanci distractedly, picking up the girl's bag which had shed a small trail of paper around the room. Millie had given Cat's shoulder a gentle squeeze and was now kneeling by the girl.

'Stress and shock,' was Chrestomanci's assessment. 'She nearly got hit by a car.'

'But who is she?' Millie had conjured a cushion from somewhere for the girl's head.

'Catherine Crisp', answered Chrestomanci, reading from a card he had found in the girl's bag. 'Samuel, I need you to find out as quickly as possible what happened to her alternate selves from the rest of Series 12.'

Steven hurried out while Chrestomanci scooped the girl up into his arms and carried her through the Middle Saloon. Cat followed and even thought to conjure a blanket for the girl once she was laid on a couch, for which he got an approving look from Chrestomanci.

'Alternate selves?' Now Julia had joined the party.

Apparently oblivious to the other people who were gradually filling up the room, Chrestomanci turned again to Cat.

'So Cat, what do you see?'

'Er. It's...odd. I wouldn't have known it was nine lives if you hadn't said, but now I know I can sort of see the same thing about you.'

'Good. Anything else.'

Cat shook his head. 'I'm still not much good at this. I was trying to see the differences between Steven and the people from 12E, but I don't think I've got it right yet.'

'Because she looks like a native of 12E to you, but that can't be if she's an Enchantress?'

'Well...yeah.'

There was a small commotion by the crowd at the door, and Cat turned to see Steven pushing his way through the mass of people.

'I haven't had time to check them all yet, sir', he began in a rush, 'but, well...it's easiest to find the alternates in our own world to begin with, and the alternate of Miss Crisp's mother from 12A was killed a year or so before she would have given birth. And so were the alternate mothers from 12D and 12H.'

'Killed?' asked Chrestomanci, sinking into an empty chair.

'Murdered, sir,' clarified Steven.

'How terrible,' muttered one of the many doorway people.

'Cat, you should have more confidence in your abilities,' said Chrestomanci grimly. 'She certainly is a native of 12E, and she certainly has nine lives. I think someone has set out to deliberately create a nine-lifed Enchanter by making sure that none of her alternate selves were ever born.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is set not long after 'The Pinhoe Egg'. I read the Chrestomanci books sometime ago and while I hope there's nothing in here that is incompatible with them, please let me know if there is. As far as I can remember, the books never mention World 12E so I have felt free to do what I like with that world.


End file.
